An examination of the reproducibility of three tests for identifying patients at risk of diabetic foot complications is reported. One thousand and one patients attending a general diabetic outpatient clinic at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital underwent screening using the Semmes‐Weinstein monofilaments, the biothesiometer, and palpation of pedal pulses. Two hundred and fifty‐nine patients who were found to have a deficit on at least one of these tests were given a second appointment where the tests were repeated. Two hundred and twenty‐nine patients attended for their second appointment. The expected range of variation in readings for the biothesiometer was 5 log hertz, sufficient variation to make the biothesiometer unacceptable as a screening instrument. The range of reproducibility for the four pedal pulses was from 68 % to 81 %, also an unacceptable level of variation. Over 85 % of the results for the Semmes–Weinstein monofilaments were the same on the first and second measurement. Of the three instruments examined in this study, only the Semmes–Weinstein monofilaments have sufficient reproducibility in the clinical setting for them to be recommended for general use as a screening test for risk of diabetic foot complications.

Ulceration of the insensitive foot continues to cause great morbidity in diabetic patients. We treated 46 patients with neuropathic ulceration by applying total contact casts. Most neuropathic ulcers healed within six weeks but ischaemic ulcers did not heal. One patient developed gangrene and required partial amputation of the foot.

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An intracapsular femoral neck fracture in a young patient is a rare and difficult injury to manage. The occurrence of complications following fixation is multifactorial. Initial displacement and timing and accuracy of reduction are the key factors affecting outcome. The severities of the trauma to the hip and the impact of the intracapsular hematoma also play a role, the importance of which remains poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the high incidence of femoral neck fractures treated in our institution over a 7-month period, to record the long-term outcome of these patients, all of whom were treated with contemporary methods of internal fixation, and to highlight the reasons for this injury being termed an "orthopedic emergency" and its differences from the same injury in the elderly population. We performed a retrospective analysis of 12 cases of intracapsular femur neck fracture in patients younger than 50 years treated over 7 months in a regional trauma center. All patients underwent satisfactory reduction and fixation. Nine of the 12 patients had a good outcome at a mean follow-up of 29 months. One patient developed a nonunion of the femoral head requiring total hip arthroplasty, one developed avascular necrosis of the femoral head, and one developed partial avascular necrosis. This compares favorably with other studies.